Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail wrote an excellent piece talking about what I wrote about last week in Old Toronto, and then the rest. Here are some of the zingers:

And Mayor Olivia Chow? She barely spoke. She ultimately supported the compromise, but she declined to stand up for a bolder vision. For a mayor elected with a mandate to address housing and equity, that silence was striking.

Meanwhile, the opposition – led by suburban councillors – offered little beyond incoherent panic. “We are risking suburban alienation,” said Parthi Kandavel of Scarborough Southwest, as though allowing modest apartment buildings might rupture the civic fabric. “A one-size-fits-all approach does not fit the bill.”

For Mr. Kandavel, as for a thousand politicians before him, one-size-fits-all is fine as long as that “one size” gives the loudest homeowners exactly what they want – and preserves economic segregation by keeping tenants away from where they don’t belong.

He goes on:

In Mr. Kandavel’s ward, at least 52 per cent of residents lived in apartments as of 2021. Nearly half are renters. To speak as if tenants are invaders is to insult the very people he represents.

If the federal government decides to withhold that $60-million, it would be entirely justified. A city that won’t allow a sixplex – a building the size of a large house – is not serious about housing, about urbanism, or about its own future.

Cover photo by Julian Gentile on Unsplash

Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail wrote an excellent piece talking about what I wrote about last week in Old Toronto, and then the rest. Here are some of the zingers:

And Mayor Olivia Chow? She barely spoke. She ultimately supported the compromise, but she declined to stand up for a bolder vision. For a mayor elected with a mandate to address housing and equity, that silence was striking.

Meanwhile, the opposition – led by suburban councillors – offered little beyond incoherent panic. “We are risking suburban alienation,” said Parthi Kandavel of Scarborough Southwest, as though allowing modest apartment buildings might rupture the civic fabric. “A one-size-fits-all approach does not fit the bill.”

For Mr. Kandavel, as for a thousand politicians before him, one-size-fits-all is fine as long as that “one size” gives the loudest homeowners exactly what they want – and preserves economic segregation by keeping tenants away from where they don’t belong.

He goes on:

In Mr. Kandavel’s ward, at least 52 per cent of residents lived in apartments as of 2021. Nearly half are renters. To speak as if tenants are invaders is to insult the very people he represents.

If the federal government decides to withhold that $60-million, it would be entirely justified. A city that won’t allow a sixplex – a building the size of a large house – is not serious about housing, about urbanism, or about its own future.

Cover photo by Julian Gentile on Unsplash